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David Cameron is as undesirable as Tory Blair?

James Cusick, in the Sunday Herald, 9 October 2005, wrote about David Cameron in an article entitled 'Here comes Tory Blair'.

Some points made by Cusick:

Cameron was a special adviser to Michael Howard when he was home secretary.

Cameron was a central member of the campaign team that helped Michael Howard become party leader.

Cameron and George Osborne became Howard’s most senior advisers.

They spoke to Howard before his weekly Prime Minister’s Questions battle with Blair.

A Clarke supporter said: “You could never say Michael was well equipped to deal with Blair. He wasn’t. It was often painful: you expected much and you got little. And Cameron has to take part of the blame. Even on Hutton [a reference to the report into the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly] it was painful.

“David Cameron was charged by Michael to become his Hutton expert. And what did Michael say on the day the Hutton report was delivered? He said: “We accept his conclusions”. We should have scored, it looked like we were bleeding.”

"Howard ... virtually passed the torch to David Cameron. So why, when he was calling the shots, did Howard fight such a mean-spirited and reactionary general election campaign?

"...Cameron has George Osborne and Michael Gove. If he became leader he would have Oliver Letwin and Maude too...

"Maybe Cameron is, despite appearances, the least nice among them. He can be abrasive with underlings. There are signs of prima donna-like behaviour. Of course, those are symptoms of immaturity...

"If the Tory members elect Cameron it will again be because he is the fresh face, in other words because they hardly know him. Last week the best speech of all was Hague’s. It goes to show that you can be good at oratory but bad at leading...

"If the Tories choose Cameron, and if because of inexperience he then crashes and burns, hopes of modernising the party will also disappear in flames. A fourth annihilation at the polls might prove terminal for the Conservative party."